The Spiders of Under
by Scribe191
Summary: This story takes place in the now crumbling ruins of a town called Little Dale, which made a living from mining and exporting coal from a nearby mine. For unexplained reasons, both town and mine was abandoned. Any expedition sent to mine the vast deposits of coal there were never heard from again. As you will soon find out, Little Dale had a bit of a... SPIDER problem...
1. Part 1 - An Introduction

_A Minecraft Fanfiction,_

_From _A Collection of Short Stories_,_

**The Spiders Of Under**

_By Scribe191_

* * *

Dear Reader,

Welcome!

If this is your first time reading an story of mine, let me introduce myself.

Those who know me call me the Scribe, No. 191.

I have lived many lifetimes. The cycle of death and rebirth is something all too familiar to me. Many have asked me my age, upon discovering that I, in one sense, am immortal. My answer is that I have forgotten.

Like my true name, both has been lost over the eons. To the ravages of time or to the numerous changes man has made to their society, I do not and will never know.

What I do know is that my years have been marked with uncountable events, both remarkable and unremarkable. All are insignificant in the grand scheme of things in the cosmic universe. But together, they form a great tale, most likely the greatest tale ever told. An epic tale that will be sung by bards in all dingy taverns across the lands, a tale told by every woman to their children, a tale that will be forever etched into the hearts of the people.

Together they will form a _Collection of Short Stories_.

But enough of all this talk. The time for words is over! It is time for the adventure to...

BEGIN!

~ Scribe, No. 191

* * *

**The Backstory:**

This particular tale takes place in the sleepy town of Little Dale, about five to six decades after it was established. Little Dale is a town that had sprung up around a successful mining outpost, earning much of its income from exporting coal.

I managed to garner this story from a particularly frightened girl. Judging from the wounds she had received, she had been bitten no less than four times by a particularly huge creature(s). The bites spanned the width of a human adult's forearm, puncturing two and a half inches deep, or six centimeters on average. They were all over her body, ranging from a relatively small bite on her calf to a nasty gaping wound to her left shoulder. Without the expert knowledge I had gathered and scrounged for in my years, she would have died. A very gruesome death most likely would have resulted from succumbing to her wounds.

All the bites seemed to have been inflicted upon her over a range of seven hours. Each bite delivered a cocktail of chemicals. Some of the more fresher wounds still had that mix of chemicals inside them. Intrigued by what this mix of chemicals could be, I used a sowing needle dipped into the substance and stabbed myself with it.

The effects of this substance was... to say the least, unpleasant, at worse, excruciating. I came to the conclusion that it must be a poison. The first stage of its effects were meant to incapacitate, giving the head dizziness and nausea, like an overdose of alcohol mixed with a severe stomachache. The second effect proved to be more disturbing however. The poison then appeared to... digest the victim, slowly dissolving their insides but leaving the skin intact, making the body akin to a wineskin filled with soup.

At least, that is what I concluded after spending a few hours stumbling around my cottage feeling a like drunkard, before clutching my stomach in pain, feeling as I had swallowed fire and it was now burning me to cinders from the inside out.

The girl came round a few days after I rescued her, four-and-twenty hours after I had recovered from my experiment. A few hours after coaxing some herbal broth into her, she managed to calm down and tell me her Story. Naturally, my pen and parchment were already lying on the table. As she talked, I recorded.

She told of a tale that would likely give any other human being nightmares. But I have encountered more horrifying stories in the past. That did not stop me from grimacing as she laid out the gruesome events that had played out.

Apparently, she was a zoologist, studying animals had been her passion. Upon hearing that some of the coal miners had been attacked by some monster on their way back from the surface, she took it upon herself to investigate and possibly document a new species of animal. As she soon discovered, Little Dale apparently had a bit of a...

_Spider_ problem.


	2. Part 2 - We Hear Of Monsters

_A Minecraft Fanfiction,_

_From _A Collection of Short Stories_,_

**The Spiders of Under**

_By Scribe191_

* * *

_ This interview was the first of three. The girl (Anne was her name), was unable to handle a full-on interview due to the linger after-effects of the poison, and thus had to take several rest breaks before I could finish recording down the entirety of her Story. _

_ The events that follow were, I assure you, taken and recorded down to the best of my ability on parchment. It also includes the interviewee's actions. I have, after stubbornly resisting the change for about a decade, finally submitted to the fact that sometimes, action speaks louder then words. _

_ (Until someone comes up with a way to capture actions however, I will portray events with words, which in my opinion, are more elegant.) _

_ But I bore you with too many words. Let Anne's Story begin!_

* * *

**Scribe, No. 191: **

So, it seems that everything started on a weak body and the basis of a hunch, yes?

**Anne: **

Yes. So it seems...

_Her face forms what I can only interpret as amusement. Suddenly, her chest heaves and her thin frame shudders as a cough violently wracks her frail body. I coax more herbal broth into her. After forming a face of utter loathing at the bowl of broth, she continues on._

**Anne**:

I've always wanted to be a zoologist. Been my dream ever since I was I wee child of five years. My mother was a veterinarian. My father, a farmer. Together, we lived relatively normal lives. Nothing out of the ordinary ever happened. Not until a year after I had realized my dream did something truly turned my life on its head.

**Scribe, No. 191: **

What was it?

**Anne: **

I can't remember. Still can't. All I remember is that something happened to me.

I have fragmented memories of that day. Sometimes, shards of it come to me. A fragment of a torn pink dress. The metallic smell of blood. An overpowering musky smell. The most vivid part of it was that of my parents rushing towards me, faces full of surprise, which evolved instantly into full fledged worry and panic.

Whatever happened that day, it changed me. I became... weaker. I couldn't run a few meters without running out of breath. I couldn't lift a load more than ten minutes without my arms aching.

It made me a burden for my family. Since we were farmers, we had to do a lot of physical work. Pulling up carrots, digging up potatoes, threshing wheat. Most of it left me dangerously gasping for breath. So, it was my mother and father that had to do most of the work as I was growing up. It pained me to see my father come back from a day's hard work, his face grey with exhaustion, my mother's face, filled with concern for him. I had to do something.

I decided to focus on honing my mental side, to sharpen it. I wanted to care for myself and provide for my family, so that my parents didn't have to break their backs to carve a meager living out of the soil. If I couldn't do it with physical strength, I would do it with mental power. I would become a scholar.

And what a scholar I became! I became famous for the research I had done to help out farmers like my family, particularly in the care and husbandry of farm animals. My parents sold the farm and moved to the city of Hope, where I lived. Hope, as _should _you well know, is the center of modern research and development.

Later on, I moved to the rural mining town of Little Dale, to be closer to nature and with animals. My parents stayed in the city though. I think they liked it better there. That is when, obviously, the more exciting part of my story starts.

_Another cough causes her body to shake. This time however, it doesn't stop. It is several minutes before she manages to control it. At this point, the clean white bedsheets she lays on are speckled crimson with her blood. I motion to put down my quill and get more herbal broth when she stops me. _

**Anne: **

Please, I can continue.

It started three months after my arrival. Gossip spread like wild fire. Strange tales of minecarts being overturned, scratch marks scoring their iron carapaces'. Their cargo of coal, gone. Pickaxes and other valuable mining equipment, some of it redstone, disappearing from the storage bays. Tunnel support struts collapsing, seemingly gnawed on.

Then the attacks started. First, it was just an expedition of miners, surveying for a possible new vein of coal. It was reported that a cave-in had killed them. But it there was talk of something else that might have killed them. Talk of cave monsters.

Two weeks after that, the mining crews pulling night shift were attacked. First, from Section G, the deepest part of the coal mines. Then it was Section C, one of the most shallowest digging sites. Then it was Section E. There were no survivors, no corpses. Just bloody track marks on the floor as the bodies of miners, dead or alive, were dragged into tunnels that led deeper into the mines.

It was no sooner than a week later than the first day time shift crew was attacked. This time however, there was a survivor. A young man, no older then nine -and-ten years had escaped. He was lying in the mine infirmary, recovering from his wounds.

That had got my attention. Initially, I had passed off the rumors of cave monsters as no more than an old wive's tale. But since the attacks started, I started to find a pattern to them. From the reports they released, it seems as if whatever attacked the miners had an attack pattern similar to a pack of Ice Wolves.

As a zoologist, I was intrigued. Patterns were repeated throughout nature. Many animals, though seemingly possessing no similarities, would use the same behavioral methods to survive. At the time, I though eagerly, "What if it was a new kind of animal? Something that we had never encountered before?"

Then another thought struck me.

What if the creature that attacked the miners were one of the Infernal Ones? We all know from lore we had been taught from young that our land once ran amok with monsters. Green-skinned man-eaters, walking skeletons. Even tales of exploding monsters that walk upright on four legs. But what if they were real? What if I could prove they were real?

My curiosity was aroused now. And it couldn't be sated until I got to the bottom of this. I needed to know what that young man had seen.

**Scribe, No. 191: **

You headed to the mine?

**Anne: **

Yes. After a lengthy argument with the Head Administrator (he wouldn't let me in for fear of distressing the young man further), I managed to gain access to him.

After receiving directions from the staff, I walked down the hallway outside the Administration Office and took a left. At the end of the corridor in front of me was two metal doors, fastened onto hinges that allowed them to swing freely. Above that door, was a sign, stating "Infirmary". I realized that my hands were clammy. I wiped my hands off on my shirt. I had never been this nervously excited before. Not since my graduation day. Taking a deep breath to steel my nerves, I pushed open the double metal doors and entered the Infirmary.

When I spotted him, I was a little taken aback. The young man just lay there, his eyes stared blankly towards the ceiling. I sat down on a stool that was placed next to the bed he lay on. He didn't even stir. The poor man. He seemed to be in shock. Trying to hope positively that he was able to answer my questions, I began.

After an hour of pointless questioning, I had gotten nowhere. Sighing, I sat up and prepared to leave, deciding to come back tomorrow. It was then that he caught my hand. I tugged, but he didn't let go. He forced out the words, "Don't... go."

"Go where?" I replied. Why now did he answer?

"Away. Stay... here. Where it's... safe." He took in ragged breaths in-between words. His eyes looked pleadingly at me.

I tried to refuse. "I have to go down there you know. I have to. I need to know what happened to those miners."

His grip on my hand grew tighter. I squirmed, trying to get him to loosen his grip on me.

"All you need to know... is that they're... they're DEAD!" He seemed desperate to stop me. "They're ALL dead! The monsters got them! He was shouting now. "Don't go!" His grip was literally like a vice around my aching hand.

The door to the infirmary burst open. The nurses rushed in. One of them forced the young man to loosen his grip on me and taking advantage of the opportunity, I pulled my hand out of his grasp. This however, only seemed to distress him further. "No! Don't go! Don't try it!" He tried to sit up from the bed, seemingly trying to run up after me. The nurses held him down, but to no avail. They were almost about to lose their grip on him when the coughing started. The young man collapsed onto the bed, struck by a fit of coughing. Suddenly, blood spurted from his mouth, staining the sterile bedsheets beneath him rose red. I couldn't help it but look at him, shocked at what had just happened.

Then I couldn't quite help noticing that his shoulder was also turning crimson. One of the nurses pulled down the collar of his shirt and revealed that there was a cloth bandage wrapped around his shoulder. It was stained red with the blood that was seeping through a wound underneath. At least, that is what I thought it was. His exertions must have opened up the wound.

Excusing myself, I walked out of the Infirmary as fast as I could. Finding the nearest bathroom, I went into a stall and locked myself in. Back facing the door, I sat down on the cold tile floor. I needed to be alone. I needed to think.

So far, I knew three things.

One: There was a monster(s) attacking the miners.

Two: That monster(s) could be one of the Infernal Ones.

Three: Whatever it was, it had thoroughly shaken that young man.

Those three things alone filled me with a slight dread, but it was underlined with boiling excitement. I wanted to find out what had happened and possibly, possibly discover an Ancient One! That alone was worth the risk I was taking. I could become famous! Be written down in history and Anne Brown, the Zoologist who proved the existence of the Infernal Ones!

It could bring in money, possibly more than I currently earned. My parents wouldn't have to be worried about me anymore, earning enough money for all of us of live on but over taxing myself to do so.

My parents could live a life free of the hard labour that had burdened their backs for thirty years. Wasn't that worth any personal risks taken on my part?

All I needed to do to accomplish that was to assemble an expedition into the mines, find who or what was attacking the miners, and come back with an Infernal One. Sounded easy to me at the time.

Nothing was further away from the truth.

* * *

_ After stating that last sentence, Anne Brown broke down into another fit of violent coughing, expelling so much blood that I had to prop her up onto the bed's headboard, in fear of her drowning in her own blood. It took every ounce of my medical skills to save her. Still, the fit weakened her dangerously to the point where any more exertions on her part could push her into a induced coma. Ordering her to rest for the rest of the day, I set another pot of herbal broth to boil on the hearth before retreating to my private room. There I sat pondering. _

_ Throughout all my life, I had known only one thing that could have possibly caused so much harm to Anne and the miners, as well as scarring that young man. If Anne indeed confirmed my suspicions, that could only mean one thing..._

_ But enough! I am rambling on. _

_ A whole day had passed before Anne was awake again. She was most ardent in continuing on in the interview, even though it was certain that she could not do so, not yet. Still, she persisted, with an attitude I have only seen in my pack mule. Trying to feed her more of my herbal concoctions served to only antagonize her. I believe her exact words while flinging a bowl of my herbal broth at my face was, "I don't want to drink more of your (expletive omitted) herbal broth! I want to continue!" Of which after, another fit of coughing assailed her. Seizing the opportunity, I helped her to get the cough under control, before slyly stabbing her with a sewing needle laced with a drug of which I knew could knock her out in an instant. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow. _

_Another two day passed before I deemed her to be stable enough interview again. She was still mad at me for knocking her out and I bore the full force of dozens of expletives before she calmed down enough to realize that I was letting her to be interviewed. Blushing from a slight embarrassment, she picked up from where we left off in her tale._

_ As you will soon read about, her little expedition was about to turn deadly. _


End file.
